Building a multidimensional display from trash

Here’s a simple concept that will let you turn any LCD screen into a multidimensional display (translated). [Herdek] used bits of that impossible to open clear plastic packaging to construct this add-on for the smart phone seen above. Three pieces of the material have been mounted at a 45 degree angle between the screen and viewer. The material is both reflective and transparent, depending on the angle at which light hits it. This allows it to reflect the light from the screen toward the viewer, but let light from the baffles behind it pass through unimpeded. The three baffles allow the LCD to be partitioned into three different sections whose images will appear to be at different depths according to the viewer’s vantage point. After the break we’ve embedded a demonstration video, as well as the how-to that shows the construction technique for the add-on.

I wonder if you can still use substitutes for semisilvered mirrors (expensive!) at angles other than 45deg. That would allow you to use highly angled mirrors with a series of similarly angled displays to create many more layers much more closely spaced. Intereflections and reflective losses might be a big problem for non-45deg angles, though, especially with non-bespoke mirrors.

Wouldn’t it be slightly better if the front exposed lcd section had a visual occlusion and then the front reflector was polarized as was the second and third lcd sections cover so that you wouldn’t see it? Maybe for the next prototype. I guess a deeper shadow box would work as well to obstruct the bottom lcd.

Just my two cents: what about a “depht box” with a screen for each of the 5 sides remaining after saving one for the hole you look into? Also: the LCDs should be covered with some of that “privacy film” that allows you to see the screen only when looking from certain angles: this way you could allow a user to see the reflection but not the screen directly…

looks interesting i will try this out, and if it looks good to me in person i will be trying this out on and old lcd monitor i got laying around. only worry i have is, how bright does it need to be on a larger scale?

Funny thing, I was JUST THINKING about this same thing, except I wanted to have a photo-reactive semitransparent sheet that creates opacity wherever there is light (If there is such a thing) so that one would see ‘objects’ versus ghosts/transparencies.

On a second note, this would be interesting as a HUD application. Instead of having one fixed distance display, you could have dimensional displays… Just a thought.